Central Europe . ctive operations of water and ice continuedof course even when the mighty disturbances of theearths crust, by which the proud ranges of the Alpswere created, had ceased. To them are due the valleyformations of the mountains and the heaping up of theAlpine foreland. This last again is a geological formationof no simple kind. It includes deposits cast into thedepths of a sea which once surrounded the Alps ; others,of later date, formed in lakes ; others, again—latest of all,and of all of most importance to the landscape—which havebeen brought down by Alpine glaciers of the Glaci
Central Europe . ctive operations of water and ice continuedof course even when the mighty disturbances of theearths crust, by which the proud ranges of the Alpswere created, had ceased. To them are due the valleyformations of the mountains and the heaping up of theAlpine foreland. This last again is a geological formationof no simple kind. It includes deposits cast into thedepths of a sea which once surrounded the Alps ; others,of later date, formed in lakes ; others, again—latest of all,and of all of most importance to the landscape—which havebeen brought down by Alpine glaciers of the GlacialEpoch, or spread by streams of melting water over aregion which the glaciers either had not reached or haddeserted. If we divide the whole Alpine region thus—outermostzone or Foreland (/), Pre-Alps (p), Limestone Alps (/),Gneissic Alps(^)—we might expect, in crossing the moun-tains from side to side, to pass over seven successive belts(/> P> l> gi h Pi /)• Bu* even m the Eastern Alps there is. THE ALPS AND THE GERMAN DANUBE 19 scarcely a single section in which we should find all thesebelts developing themselves in this succession. In theWestern Alps the southern outer zones are entirely absent,and the inner curving edge exhibits ancient schistose andgneissic rocks breaking off suddenly towards the Pied-montese area of depression. This conspicuous fact alonewould form a sufficient ground for dividing the wholeAlpine range into two wings, the dividing line of whichfollows the Rhine Valley from the Lake of Constance,rises with the Hinter Rhine to the Spliigen Pass, andgoes round the Lake of Como on its way to reach theLake of Lugano and the Lago Maggiore. The Western Alps are gathered together into narrowercompass ; their principal ridges press so closely upon theplains of Italy that the contrast between a steep inner anda more broadly developed outer slope becomes particularlystriking ; they include higher mountains, larger snow-fields, glaciers more richly
Size: 1271px × 1965px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidcentraleurop, bookyear1903
